Rand, McNally & Co.'s business atlas map of New Mexico. 1897 5 1 4 3 6 7 2 Image No: 3565144 Rumsey Collection - Terms of Use 1: American Homesteaders 1862 American homesteaders did not flood into New Mexico as they did to Oregon and California, in part because most of the best land had been claimed centuries before, and in part because the areas outside of the old "Pueblo province" were not safe for settlers. The U.S. Army paved the way, with forts from which they launched relentless campaigns against the Navajo, Comanche, and Apache. Images: Jim Norris and wife, homesteaders, Pie Town: Russell Lee 1944 2: Louis 1879-1896 The Miera family were the first to establish a ranch in this country, and Luis Garcia followed them in 1874, establishing a little store, around which grew a community known as Garcia's Plaza or Tramperos Plaza, for the nearby creek. In 1892, the Post Office changed the name to Louis, an Anglicization of the founder's name. The settlement was abandoned after the collapse of the ranching industry. [Julyan, Robert] Quote: In 1885, Tramperos Plaza was the theatre of social activity and the center of local commercialism. At Tramperos Plaza, Luis F. Garcia kept a stock of general merchandise which included whiskey and beer. WIthin the one-story adobe building, with dirt roof and dirt floors, Garcia's store harbored Tramperos' post office to which mail from Springer, 85 miles distant, arrived about nine o'clock each Tuesday and Friday morning-- weather and the capacity of one small pony which drew the buckboard bearing the mail pouch permitting. The nearest post office to Tramperos was Tequesquite, now Albert, some 40 miles southwest, of which A.B. Knell was the postmaster. In the Tramperos country, and upon the stream of that name, a dozen or more native-born ranchmen had settled about 1878, namely, Garcia Brothers, Jose Manuel, Luis F., Maximo, Francisco, Jose de la Luz, and Abelino. They were owners of sheep and cattle. Francisco Miera, the Lobatos, C.J.H. Bushnell, James McDonald and James Carter resided 10 miles or so west of the Plaza. Candido Garcia and Thomas O. Boggs were owners of sheep and had ranches on the Pinavetitios, five miles or so above the Beatty ranch. Boggs, frontiersman and scout of the 1840's, once made his headquarters at Bent's Fort on the Arkansas. His wife was a niece of Mrs. Kit Carson. Carson's youngest child, Josefita, was living with Boggs and his wife in 1886. His son, Charlie, was shot and killed at their ranch in the summer of 1887. Though suspicion pointed to his wife as the slayer of her husband, nothing came of the charge. In 1884, and for several years thereafter, a telephone line connected the Beatty ranch on Pinavetitos Creek 10 miles north of Tramperos Plaza, then belonging to the Prairie Cattle Company, with Trinidad, Colorado, by way of the company's headquarters ranch on the Cimarron, the former Hall Bros.' property. The length of this privately owned telephone line was 125 miles. [Thompson, Albert W.] 3: Clayton 1886 Quote: (1886) No habitation existed in 1886 between the present post office of Clapham, where resided Postmaster James H. Davis, a native of Vermont, 4 miles down stream from whom lived James Taylor-- and the 101 Ranch on the Cimarron River 5 miles east of the present Kenton, Okla., except the sub-ranch of Dr. T.E. Owen on the Perico known as the Pitchfork Ranch-- a distance of 75 miles. Homer E. Byler was care-taker a tthe Perico property for Dr. Owen whose home ranch was ten miles west of the later-founded town of Folsom. About 1883, Dr. Owen had bought several preemption claims of 160 acres each on the Perico, on one of which he built a three-room adobe house. Lumber, shingles, flooring, and doors for this house were freighted from Trinidad, a distance of 125 miles. It stood near the site of the Clayton waterworks of today. One room, that closest to the stream, was used as a kitchen, the middle room as sleeping quarters, and the north room for a store. The north room sheltered the first post office created in the Clayton District. It was established November 9, 1886, under the name of Perico with Homer E. Byler as Postmaster (Records in the Post Office Department in Washington.) Until the completion of the Denver and Ft. Worth railroad, the Perico Post Office was supplied from Tramperos, 40 miles distant, on a weekly schedule. A few letters and newspapers, addressed to Byler and Edward Sprague-- the latter living at the present Otto Ranch 5 miles up the Perico from Byler's store-- usually constituted the mail addressed to that office. They were the only settlers then living in this great area. For a year after the creation of the Perico Post Office, Byler sent a man on horseback to Tramperos Plaza 40 miles west once each week for mail, who remained overnight at Garcia's store, returning to the Perico the following day. Jim Harvey, in summer a chuck-wagon cook, was the primal mail carrier on this route during the winter of 1886-1887. [Thompson, Albert W.] Overview: Clayton Modern Clayton is the county seat of Union County. It was founded in 1887 by former Arkansas Senator Stephen Dorsey, who established it as a shipping point for his cattle and cattle from the Panhandle and the Pecos Valley regions. Clayton's claim to Wild West fame was the hanging of Black Jack Ketchum, a notorious train robber and alleged murderer. The execution, the only one in Union County history, was botched, and Ketchum was decapitated. Pictures from the hanging were made into popular postcards. A popular attraction near Clayton is Clayton Lake State Park. Images: Main Street in Clayton Links: Clayton New Mexico Website -- http://www.claytonnewmexico.net/ Office of the State Historian: Clayton -- http://www.newmexicohistory.org/filedetails_docs.php? fileID=1324 4: Caurrampow Creek 1885 Quote: (1886) Thirty miles northeast of the Perico and 5 miles east of the New Mexico line, in No-Man's-Land, lived Francisco Lujan who, a year or so before, had driven to that virgin district a band of sheep from Mora, New Mexico, to settle on the Corrumpa. In 1886, a rough road or trail strung out from Byler's store [in Perico] to the Cimarron River which was used principally by round-up wagons and trail herds movign from the south during summer months. ...One branch of this road crossed the Corrumpa at the Old Santa Fe Trail; another entered No-Man's-Land then unsurveyed, forded this sluggish water course, traversed the plateau north of this steam, and followed the Tequisquite down to the 101 Ranch. It was a long ride from the Perico to the Cimarron. Not a human habitation then existed thereon for 50 miles. [Thompson, Albert W.] 5: Raton Toll Road 1885 Quote: (1885) In 1866, Richens L. Wootten, scout and frontiersman of early times, secured from both the Territories of Colorado and New Mexico, to construct and operate a toll road over Raton Pass. The grant remained in effect until the completion of the Santa Fe Railroad. Twelve miles or so from Trinidad, a bend in the road disclosed a large, square, adobe-constructed two-story house standing on the east side of the ravine and surrounded by massive cottonwoods. One hundred yards west of the house were stables, corrals, and sheds. Across the road stretched a chain near which stood a man well along in years, garbed in the rough clothes of a ranchman, his eyes protected by colored glasses. Reaching the chain, we dismounted and addressed the stranger who pleasantly returned our salutations. He was R.L. Wootten, known as "Uncle Dick." I had never heard of "Uncle Dick," whose exploits in the early days would fill volumes. We conversed with him for a few minutes and then rode on up in the ravine. Over Wootten's road in the 1860's and 1870's slowly trailed thousands of long-horned cattle bound north from Texas. Men of distinction, officials of the Government journeying to or from Santa Fe, and ranchmen patronized it. Indians passing over it paid no toll and were hurried along. Receipts from "Uncle Dick's" toll road and hotel ran into thousands of dollars annually which, unfortunately, he failed to lay by. [Thompson, Albert W.] Overview: Raton In 1879, the AT&SF railroad purchased the old toll road, and put a branch line through here. The townsite for Raton was purchased from the Maxwell Land Grant in 1880. The railroad helped the town become a ranching, mining, and logging center for northern New Mexico. Today, Interstate 25 and the Amtrak both pass through Raton, and so for many visitors, Raton has become the gateway to New Mexico. Local attractions include Sugarite Canyon State Park. Images: Raton photographer RL Campbell captured this portrait of area ranchers and coal miners in 1880 Links: City of Raton -- http://www.cityofraton.com/ 6: Chico Springs 1886 Quote: (1886) Among those who, in 1886, owned far-stretched land interests in northeastern New Mexico was Stephen W. Dorsey. Mr. Dorsey was United States Senator from Arkansas from 1873 to 1879. His home ranch was located at Chico Springs, 25 miles east of Springer. Coming to New Mexico in 1877, the ex-Senator and his company engaged in stock raising on a grand scale. His cattle, of a superior quality and grade, in the '80's were scattered over all northeastern New Mexico.